Subscription business models aren’t just for razors and beauty boxes. Could your business benefit from building a recurring revenue stream?

Subscription billing (also called recurring payments, automatic payments or automated billing) means you have an agreement to automatically charge your repeat customers’ payments to a saved credit (or debit) card, instead of them having to remember to pay each invoice.

The most important reason to adopt recurring billing is to make your revenue more predictable, leading to better cash flow management and more time to spend on the tasks that make you money.

A subscription business model works for both product- and service-based businesses, and can also be set up for only a segment of your customers. Having even a portion of your customers on subscription helps you build relationships and brand loyalty. And if you have the right tools to manage your automatic payments, you’re going to free up a lot of time that you used to spend invoicing customers and chasing down payments.

Wave’s new automatic payments features are designed to help a variety of businesses—each with different challenges—run smoother. Here’s a quick look at how three different businesses can use automatic payments to save time.

Membership businesses

Gyms, yoga studios and boutique fitness clubs naturally lend themselves perfectly to a subscription model. Since many gyms use memberships for the bulk of their customers, automatic billing is essential. Wave makes it simple for personal trainers, for example, to set up new clients on auto-pay as they join, and easily see the status of all their customers’ payments.

Creative professionals

Photographers, freelance writers, web developers, and other creative professionals have customers who use their services regularly, as well as those who don’t. Wave offers these freelancers the option to bill their regular customers automatically, and still create professional, customized invoices with flexible payment options for their ad hoc customers.

Home maintenance

Home maintenance businesses often have loyal customers who go to them on a recurring basis, but the seasonal nature of their business means they need more flexibility for billing their customers. For example, landscapers might have some customers who use their services weekly, and others who call a few times a season. Wave has the most flexible scheduling tool available, so landscapers can schedule automatic payments daily, weekly or monthly or they can fully customize the frequency to meet their needs.